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 CHAPTER XV.

THE BOOK OF JOB FROM A GENERAL AND WESTERN POINT OF VIEW.

The Book of Job is even less translatable than the Psalter. And why? Because there is more nature in it. 'He would be a poet,' says Thoreau, 'who could impress the winds and streams into his service to speak for him.' They do speak for the poet of Job; the 'still sad music of humanity' is continually relieved by snatches from the grand symphonies of external nature. And hence the words of Job are 'so true and natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach of spring.' It is only a feeble light which the Authorised Version sheds upon this poem; and even the best prose translation must for several reasons be inadequate. Perhaps, though English has no longer its early strength, a true poet might yet achieve some worthy result. Rarely has the attempt been made. George Sandys was said by Richard Baxter to have 'restored Job to his original glory,' but he lived before the great era of Semitic studies. The poetical translator of Job must not disdain to consult critical interpreters, and yet by his own unassisted skill could he bring this Eastern masterpiece home to the Western reader? I doubt it. Even more than most imaginative poems the Book of Job needs the help of the painter. It is not surprising therefore that a scholar of Giotto should have detected the pictorial beauties of the story of Job. Though only two of the six Job-frescoes remain entire, the Campo Santo of Pisa will be impoverished when time and the sea-air effect the destruction of these. I know not whether any modern painter besides William Blake has illustrated Job. He, a